


This Chancy Rendezvous

by glorious_spoon



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Christmas, Domestic Fluff, Everybody Lives, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Pining, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27670541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: He's been living in Richie and Eddie’s spare room in Manhattan since September, slogging through manuscript revisions and watching the two of them be achingly happy together.Or: post-divorce, Bill is pining; meanwhile, Richie and Eddie are just waiting for him to get on the same page.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24
Collections: It Rare Pair Secret Santa 2020





	This Chancy Rendezvous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/gifts).



> Title from 'You Might Think' by The Cars.

Richie is wearing a Santa costume, and Bill doesn’t know how to cope with it.

More to the point: Richie is wearing a Santa costume, in public, in a crowded shopping mall that _already has_ mall Santas, which he keeps getting mistaken for. It’s making an already hellish shopping trip take twice as long as it needs to.

“How are you okay with this?” he asks Eddie, while Richie crouches next to a delighted little girl in a pink sweater, fake beard hooked underneath his chin as he talks animatedly.

“This isn’t even remotely the most embarrassing thing he’s ever done while we were out in public,” Eddie says absently, peering at his phone. “I want to go to Bloomingdale’s next. There’s a sale on handbags.”

“Bev is not going to want a handbag from Bloomingdale’s, Eddie.”

“Not for Bev. It’s—oh, thank fuck, are you finally done?”

Richie has unfolded off the floor, sending the beaming little girl away with a high five. He tugs the fake beard back up as he approaches them. Eddie rolls his eyes ostentatiously, but he’s not doing a very good job of hiding his smile. Bill ducks his head, grinning, as Richie slings an arm over his shoulders and presses a whiskery, peppermint-scented kiss to his cheek before letting go to drape himself over Eddie’s shoulder.

“Whatcha doin?” He peers at the phone in Eddie’s hand. “Oh. For Patty?”

“Yeah, Stan mentioned—” Eddie breaks off when Richie leans in for a kiss, sets a palm on his chest and pushes him gently but firmly away. “Nope. We already discussed this. I am not kissing you in public while you’re wearing that manky-ass fake beard, man.”

“The kink-shaming is breaking my heart, here,” Richie whines, dropping his head down on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Yeah, get somebody else to fulfill your exhibitionist Santa kink, you pervert,” Eddie says, then tugs the beard out of the way to kiss Richie anyway. “There you go. Merry Christmas.”

Richie beams hugely; Bill looks away, something twisting in his heart at the sight of them. Something warm and fond and _yearning_ that he’s trying hard not to think about. He’s been trying to convince himself that it’s just… proximity, or something. This is his first Christmas alone after the divorce. He doesn’t regret that, exactly—he’s glad that it ended while there was still a chance of being friends with Audra someday—but it’s lonely. It’s fucking lonely.

Ben and Bev are spending Christmas with Ben’s elderly mother. Stan shared a picture to the group chat yesterday of Patty lighting a menorah with the caption ❤❤ _Babylove_ ❤❤. Mike is in Arizona, where he stopped his cross country road-trip three months ago; the pictures he posts are sun-soaked and joyful.

And Bill… has been living in Richie and Eddie’s spare room in Manhattan since September, slogging through manuscript revisions and watching the two of them be achingly happy together.

They deserve it, both of them. He _wants_ that for them. He just also wants…

Things he can’t have. He’s always been greedy like that.

* * *

It’s dark by the time they finally make it back out to the car, a soft flurry of snow drifting down. Richie has dispensed with the hat and beard, and the red crushed-velvet coat flaps open as he spins under a street lamp, head tilted back, mouth open to catch snowflakes on his tongue. Bill watches him with a helpless smile on his face that he doesn’t even realize is there until he glances over at Eddie to see him wearing nearly exactly the same expression.

Richie catches them looking at him a moment later. He grins, wide and bright. “What?”

“You are actually a dog in human form, aren’t you?” Eddie asks, but his dark eyes are dancing. “Jesus Christ, dude.”

“Woof, woof,” Richie says, swooping in to nuzzle him.

“Rich, if you lick me, I swear to God—”

Richie laughs and kisses his cheek, then releases him to do the same to Bill, who tries not to lean into it too obviously. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here. I’m fucking freezing.”

“Wear a hat, then, dumbass,” Eddie says fondly as he unlocks the car.

* * *

Back at the apartment, they stow the piles of bags in the closet of the spare room where Bill has been sleeping. Richie changes out of the Santa costume and into flannel pajama pants and an obnoxious holiday sweater while Eddie wanders into the kitchen and starts puttering around at the stove. Bill leans in the doorway and watches him take out milk and cocoa powder, sugar and nutmeg, mixing them in a pan and muttering to himself, a half-verbalized monologue that he always seems to carry on when he’s in the middle of a household task. The smell of chocolate is warm and rich in the air when he leans up to start pulling mugs out of the cabinet, sweater riding up to bare a strip of skin just above the waistband of his pants.

Bill rubs a hand over his face, then zips up his hoodie and ducks out onto the balcony, pulling the door shut behind him.

The city below is muffled with snow, scattered flurries still drifting down. It’s mounded on the table and the chairs and piled in a thin white ridge on the wrought-iron railing. Bill dusts it off with his sleeve and leans against it, feeling the bite of cold metal through his sleeve as he looks out. Even after all the years he spent in California, some part of him always yearns for snow this time of year. It’s nice, even if it is freezing.

It’s nice, having a place to go. It’s not like he couldn’t afford to get his own place, and he’ll have to do that eventually, but right now the thought of rattling around some empty townhouse by himself is just… profoundly depressing. It’s good to be here, with his friends, even if it makes his heart ache.

The door slides open behind him, and Richie steps out onto the balcony. He’s got his bare feet shoved into a pair of sneakers and a pair of mugs in his hands. He picks his way across the balcony and hands one of them to Bill, who takes it gratefully, wrapping his cold fingers around the warm ceramic.

He takes a drink, tasting chocolate and nutmeg and the sweet bite of rum. “Did you spike this?”

“Eddie did, actually,” Richie says. “I’m not the only delinquent here.”

“Fair enough,” Bill concedes, and looks away at the bright flash of Richie’s smile. They drink their hot cocoa in silence for a little while before Richie bumps Bill’s shoulder lightly.

“Penny for your thoughts, Big Bill,” he says, and Bill laughs. The nickname is patently ridiculous now that Richie’s got a good six inches of height on him, but never let it be said that Richie Tozier won’t commit to a bit.

“Just…” he trails off. “Just glad to be here, I guess. Did I ever tell you guys how grateful I am for letting me stay?”

“You say that like you’re a stray puppy or something,” Richie says. “We like having you here, dude.”

“Still.” Bill looks down at the cup in his hands, the dregs already starting to go cold. “Thanks.”

The door slides open again behind them, and Eddie comes outside, jacket zipped up to his throat and hood pulled up over his head.

“You know,” he says. “When I said you should go get him, I meant you should get him to come _inside._ ”

“We’re just enjoying the peace and quiet out here, Eduardo,” Richie says innocently.

“Admiring the view,” Bill adds, and it seems a little too honest the moment he says it, looking at Richie’s cheeks and nose pinked by the cold, the snowflakes already starting to catch in Eddie’s dark eyelashes. He turns back toward the night city, setting his nearly-empty mug down on the snow-covered table. His fingers are freezing. He flexes them, then tugs his sleeves down over his hands.

“Oh my god,” Eddie mutters, picking his way over to them. “It’s like living with a pair of toddlers, I swear. Is this what fame does to a person? Just rots your brain entirely?”

It’s Bill he reaches for, unexpectedly; his fingers are shockingly warm when he takes both of Bill’s hands in his and chafes them gently. Bill doesn’t pull back, although there’s a part of him that feels like he should. Eddie’s hands are warm and soft, with short, neat nails and a narrow ridge of scar tissue across his palm where Bill once cut him open with a slippery shard of glass.

Bill blinks and looks up; Eddie’s head is bent, but Richie is watching them with a knowing warmth that makes Bill feel exposed, suddenly. Like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t even though he wasn’t doing anything at all. He tugs his hands away abruptly.

“Actually y-you’re right. I am cold. I’m gonna go take a shower, get ready for bed—” he backs up as he talks, trying not to look too much like he’s fleeing; when he reaches the door he tugs it open and escapes inside, and neither of them follow him.

* * *

They’re in the kitchen when he gets out of the shower, talking quietly. Bill pauses on the way across the hall, still toweling off his hair, and for a moment he considers just escaping into his bedroom and pretending to be asleep.

That’ll probably make all this weirder in the long term, though, so he tosses the damp towel in the hamper and makes his way down the dim hallway to the light spilling out the kitchen doorway.

“...just came out,” Eddie is saying. “The divorce was finalized like _three months_ ago, I’m just saying—”

“Yeah, and you kissed me on the fucking courthouse steps the day you got your release papers, so what’s your point?”

“My _point_ , asshole, is that we shouldn’t push him. That’s all.”

“Maybe he’s not interested.”

“Maybe you’re an idiot,” Eddie suggests.

“No ‘maybe’ about that,” Richie says, and Bill can hear the smile in his voice. “Hey, c’mere.”

Eddie doesn’t answer, but a moment later Bill hears the soft rustle of cloth, a clatter like something on the counter got knocked into. When he ducks his head into the kitchen, Eddie has Richie backed up against the sink, hands in his hair to pull him down for a kiss. Richie is slouching into it, long legs spread so that Eddie can fit between them, one big hand resting easily at the base of Eddie’s spine.

They look so fucking _good_ together, and Bill wants—he just _wants_ —

He must make some kind of noise, because they break apart—softly, easily—and turn toward him.

“S-s-sorry,” he manages, feeling his face heat when the word catches stubbornly in his mouth. “I’m juh-just gonna—”

Richie tilts his head. He’s smiling a little.

“Hey,” he says. “Come here.”

“Rich,” Eddie says quietly. He’s got one hand on Richie’s hip but he’s turned toward Bill, and his eyes are dark and serious.

“If you want to,” Richie amends. “Come here, if and _only_ if you want to.”

Eddie rolls his eyes but doesn’t interject again.

Bill doesn’t have a fucking clue what’s happening here—or, okay, no, that’s a lie. He knows what it _seems_ like is happening here, between the conversation he just overhead and the soft way they’re both looking at him, but he knows that it can’t be true. It’s just his imagination doing what it does, running away from him and spinning wild fantasies out of nothing.

He steps into the kitchen anyway. It barely even feels like a decision. He feels like there’s a thread stretched across the room, reeling him in. Eddie shifts out of the vee of Richie’s legs to catch Bill with a hand on his elbow, a light steadying touch, and Bill closes his eyes and breathes in, abruptly embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

“If we minded being interrupted, we wouldn’t be in the middle of the kitchen,” Eddie says.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Besides,” Richie adds. “It was just a kiss.”

Bill squeezes his eyes shut tighter. His face feels mortifyingly hot. “Yeah.”

“You can have one too,” Richie says, and it should sound mocking but somehow the cadence makes it sincere instead.

“What?”

“You can have a kiss too, if you want. Do you?”

“Yeah,” Bill says, punched out and breathless, consumed by a sudden wild recklessness. He opens his eyes to look straight back at Richie. The angles of his face, his thick-rimmed glasses, the smile caught in the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, I do, since you’re asking.”

Richie grins, and Bill has a stomach-churning instant where he’s sure this has all been some kind of huge joke—and then he leans down to kiss Bill on the mouth, just as easy as that.

It’s slow and soft and—and _comfortable_ —they were all so comfortable in each others’ space as kids, something that fell off once puberty started asserting itself, but this is like that. It’s nice. Richie is taller than anyone else Bill has ever kissed, and his hand spreads out big and warm against Bill’s hip, and something shivery sweeps through him when he feels Eddie crowd close from his other side, closing him into the circle of their arms.

“This okay?” he asks, close enough that Bill can feel his hot breath on the side of his neck, and Bill gasps into the kiss, then pulls away just enough to speak.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s good.”

“Fucking told you, Eds,” Richie says, sounding so smug that Bill yanks him back in for another kiss that’s anything but soft this time. Eddie starts laughing next to Bill’s ear, soft and delighted, and it seems like the easiest thing in the world to turn and kiss him too.

Eddie is more forceful about it than Richie was. His hand leaves Bill’s hip to catch his chin and position him how he wants him, zero to a hundred in the span of a breath. Licks hotly into his mouth until Bill is swaying against him, overwhelmed and desperately grateful for the way Richie’s arm has slipped around his shoulders to brace him. They’re crowded close, a warm little circle: Bill and his two oldest, best friends in the world, holding him up. Holding him steady.

“What the fuck,” he breathes into that space when Eddie finally releases him. “What are we doing here?”

“I think the technical term is ‘making out’,” Richie says.

“Are you literally fourteen?” Eddie asks, thwapping him gently upside the head.

“No, I’m pretty sure if we did this when I was fourteen I would have _literally_ had an aneurysm,” Richie says. “But since I’m actually forty-one, and you two are short as fuck, my spine would appreciate it if we took this somewhere flatter.”

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie sighs, and Bill starts laughing, a breathless, giddy kind of sound, shaky from pent-up adrenaline.

“Seriously,” he says. “What the _fuck_ are we doing?”

Eddie’s hand spreads warmly against his hip as he moves closer. There’s a brief silence during which Bill suspects them of some unspoken eye-contact communication, then he says, “That’s up to you.”

Bill takes a shallow breath. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Richie says. “We could go back in the living room, and find some shitty Christmas movie with a dog in it for Eddie to cry over—”

“— _fuck_ you, dude—”

“—or we could take this to the bedroom. Where there’s a bed, and I won’t pull a muscle trying to suck face with you two vertically-challenged assholes.”

“ _Suck face,_ ” Eddie mouths, visibly exasperated. “Is this your seduction technique? Really?”

“Worked on you,” Richie says, and turns a grin on Bill. “How about it?”

“Eddie’s right, you suck at this,” Bill says, but he feels lighter than he has in—months. Longer, maybe. “Option two sounds good to me.”

* * *

It’s later—much later—when he peels his face off of the pillow to mumble, “So, is this a one-time thing, or what?”

Richie, surprisingly, is the only one of them who seems all the way awake. He’s sitting up, bare and pale and somehow more naked without his glasses than he is without his clothes. Between them, Eddie is sprawled out in a loose-limbed, sated heap, one hand still gripping Bill’s hip.

“That’s kind of your call,” Richie says. “But, I mean, it’s a big bed.”

“Yeah, and it’d be nice to have the spare room back,” Eddie mumbles without moving from where his face is wedged under Bill’s ribs.

Richie leans over to jab him in the side. “You don’t get to complain about my seduction techniques anymore. What the hell. Bill, you don’t have to listen to him, he’s fuck-brained.”

“What?” Eddie mumbles. Bill can feel his mouth moving, his warm damp breath. “I’m just saying. Don’t make it sound like we don’t want him to stay.”

“We do want you to stay,” Richie says, in a clarifying tone. He leans across them both to grab his glasses off the far nightstand, his body a warm familiar weight in the moment before he sits back up. “But you don’t have to if it’s too much, or too weird. And you should know that Eddie kicks in his sleep.”

“Yeah, well, you snore.”

“I grind my teeth,” Bill offers. “Or at least Audra always said I did.”

“You should get a mouth-guard,” Eddie mumbles into his sternum. Bill laughs quietly, dragging his fingers through Eddie’s disheveled hair, which is very soft. He’s feeling warm and loose and more than a little fuck-brained himself. Maybe he’ll get around to freaking out about all this later; for now, he’s comfortable and he doesn’t want to move. Possibly ever.

“I could stay here tonight,” he says, letting his eyes slip closed.

“Yeah, okay,” Richie says, flopping down on his other side as Eddie tucks himself closer. “That’d be a good start.”


End file.
